MALCOLM MACKAY - THE NECESSARY DEATH OF LEWIS WINTER

Synopsis/blurb........

A twenty-nine-year-old man lives alone in his Glasgow flat. The telephone rings; a casual conversation, but behind this a job offer. The clues are there if you know to look for them.

He is an expert. A loner. Freelance. Another job is another job, but what if this organisation wants more?

A meeting at a club. An offer. A brief. A target:

Lewis Winter.

It's hard to kill a man well. People who do it well know this. People who do it badly find out the hard way. The hard way has consequences.

An arresting, gripping novel of dark relationships and even darker moralities, The Necessary 

Death of Lewis Winter introduces a remarkable new voice in crime fiction.

The second book in the Glasgow Trilogy How A Gunman Says Goodbye will follow soon . . .

Wow! If I read a better book this month I’ll be extremely surprised and delighted.  

Cool, incisive, sharp, interesting, addictive and totally satisfying. Mackay lifted and transplanted me straight into the heads of a hitman, a cop, a tart, a drug dealer and a crime boss, among others. I have to wonder whether he was one of these, or perhaps even all five in a previous life, before he turned his hand to writing.

The prose and narrative is so smooth and impressive, had circumstance permitted I would have read all 312 pages in one sitting. Never a lull in the story, never a page or chapter where my interest dipped, each and every strand of this story sustained my interest. Totally captivating.

Violence? Yes.

Unsavoury, amoral characters and chancers? Yes.

Decent folk? A couple.

These are the people I like reading about.

With thanks to Raven for pointing me in the direction of this. Raven Crime Reads’ review of Lewis Winter is here.

I’m looking forward to the 2^nd installment in the trilogy about Glasgow’s criminal underworld, How A Gunman Says Goodbye. Incidentally this follow up book won the Deanston Scottish Crime Book of the Year prize.

6 stars out of 5!

I borrowed my copy from my local library.

      

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET JOURNEY - 2013

A web photo - not my actual books. Mine are more dis-organised!

More for my own amusement than for any other reason, I have pulled all my entries together below.

26 weeks, 26 letters, 150 authors, 150 books, at the time of posting I had read 67 of them and 83 were unread, though in the mean-time I have read a further 2 of them.....go me!

2 letters were under-represented on the basis that I was trying to highlight 6 selections weekly from my shelves past and present. At one point I used to keep all my books, but that has sort of become impractical, so now I read and get rid if I can. The I's with 4 and the X's with 2 failed me. Somehow there just doesn't seem to be enough hard-boiled or noir Chinese crime fiction authors translated into English.

There were 16 female author entries and 134 male, enough said!

Approximately 90-odd entries were for US authors, 26 or so English, 7 Irish, and a smattering of South African, Australian, French, Scottish, Welsh and a couple of Chinese. Single entries for Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Holland, Germany and perhaps Belize and New Zealand depending on the author's preferred nationality.  

The heavy bias to male written crime originating from the US, probably accurately reflects my reading preferences. You like what you like!




A's ENJOYED, A's UNREAD

B's ENJOYED, B's UNREAD

C's ENJOYED, C's UNREAD

D's ENJOYED, D ENDURED, D's UNREAD

E's ENJOYED, E ENDURED, E's UNREAD

F's ENJOYED, F's UNREAD

G's ENJOYED, G's UNREAD

H's ENJOYED, H's UNREAD

I's UNREAD, I's ENJOYED

J's UNREAD, J's ENJOYED

K's ENJOYED, K's UNREAD

L's ENJOYED, L's UNREAD

M's ENJOYED, M's UNREAD

N's ENJOYED, N's UNREAD

O's ENJOYED, O's UNREAD

P's ENJOYED, P's UNREAD

Q's ENJOYED, Q's UNREAD

R's ENJOYED, R's UNREAD

S's ENJOYED, S's UNREAD

T's ENJOYED, T's UNREAD

U ENJOYED, U's UNREAD

V's ENJOYED, V's UNREAD

W's ENJOYED, W's UNREAD

X's UNREAD

Y's UNREAD

Z's ENJOYED, Z's UNREAD

JIM THOMPSON - THE RIP-OFF

Synopsis/blurb...........

Is Manuela Aloe a gift from heaven or the girlfriend from hell? From the moment Britt Rainstar starts seeing the curvaceous heiress, he finds himself menaced by vicious dogs, stalked by pistol-packing skeletons, and attacked by an unseen assailant in a hospital lobby. Couldn't Manny just send flowers?

My last Jim Thompson read was 3 years ago in October 2010, back when I was recording what I had read books-wise but wasn’t penning any thoughts on them. The book at that time was The Alcoholics and to be truthful I can’t really remember what I thought of it, good, bad or indifferent.

This time around The Rip-Off was my Goodreads Pulp Fiction group read for September.  Published posthumously around 1985, the book has mixed reviews on Amazon US. The 1-star reviews outnumber the 4-stars by 3 to 2, with a couple in-between and no-one rating it as a 5.

My thoughts...... short-ish at 220-odd pages which was a plus point, particularly in view of the fact that the menacing of Britt Rainstar and the whole plot or premise of the book, I felt indifferent to. Some on-line comments on the book, regard it as an attempt by Thompson to pen a comedic novel, something I wouldn’t necessarily agree with though it did have some humorous moments.  I felt a lack of tension as the book unfolded and irrespective of Rainstar’s ultimate fate at the end, I was already looking forward to my next read.

Thompson doesn’t shy away from describing some of the bodies less savoury functions and I guess he was ahead of his time in respect of trying to push boundaries a bit further. Nothing too graphic, but did it add to the story, or was it included to satisfy his own whims? Who knows? As a separate observation, one thing is probably sure though, I don’t think too many of his protagonists died lacking for sex.

The posthumous nature of the book’s appearance after his death has me wondering whether it was an attempt to cash in on his restored reputation. Had it been rejected and refused when he was alive? Too weak? Some publishing notes at the front of my Corgi paperback copy, advise that when he died in 1977, none of his books were available in print in the US. Critical opinion of Thompson has grown in the intervening years and he is ranked with other hard-boiled masters such as McCoy, Chandler and Hammett. The critics probably didn’t have The Rip-Off in mind when re-evaluating his place in the pantheon.     

Toying between a 2 and a 3, on balance I’ll give it a 2 from 5.  Not the worst book I have ever read, by a long shot, and whilst I didn’t want to attack myself with a scissors when reading I would hesitate to recommend it.

I have read and enjoyed a fair few of Jim Thompson’s books in the past and will do again in the future, and if this is his weakest at least it’s out of the way.

I acquired my copy second hand recently, as I couldn’t find the original among the chaos of my library.

    

SEPTEMBER ADDITIONS TO THE LIBRARY....SOME OF AT LEAST

Depending on my steely inner resolve and willpower - which to date hasn't been much in evidence, this may be one of the last months where I actually buy, pursue, swap or otherwise acquire additional material for the shelves!

If people want to send me stuff - hey it would be rude to stop them. So if I can reduce the additions to a trickle, I can make inroads in the unread - in theory.

My aim is to bring some order to the chaos that is my book collection. After being evicted from my study in the interests of world peace nearly a year ago - alright, so my two teenage daughters could have separate bedrooms, my books previously a picture of harmony, order and calm were unceremoniously re-homed in my attic in a haphazard fashion.

They still haven't been sorted so when I want to read something I can't find it - though it could be in one of the 9 boxes in my mother-in-law's loft also!

Anyway with the milestone of 50 looming, I ought to spend the next 25 years or so - fingers crossed - reading what I already have and reducing the mess so the kids don't have the problem of doing it when I'm gone. If I catalogue my books and order them I can read what I want when I want. Simple!

Anyway before my New Years Resolution for 2014, kicks in at the end of October, I'll enjoy my hobby unrestrained.

Some of September's additions.........

Aussie author 2nd book. 

1st taste of Robotham for me.

Hap and Leonard novella!

Free e-book!

Argentina in the 70's

Charity shop buy!

A present from my wife!

A present from my wife!

2nd book in the trilogy from the library - and I haven't yet read the 1st!

SEPTEMBER, 2013 - READING LIST

September was a decent month's reading for me. I managed 11 books in total which was up on August. I kept pace with my Scandinavian reading challenge and managed to make up for the lack of an Award winning book last month with two this time around. Funny enough the 2 Award winners scored lowest on my unscientific scoreboard - both 3's for me, which usually means okay, satisfying but not overly impressive.

I didn't finish my Goodreads group choice of the month, but I'm over halfway and won't beat myself up over it. Of the 11 books I read, 8 were new authors to me and all were satisfying reads. 3 females read in the month which is probably high for me.....hey I'm working on it ok?

Two contenders for books of the month and I'm unable to split them. Both featured Nazis/Nazism as a theme or back-drop to the stories.

Reads of the month - Peter Leonard - son of Elmore - Back From The Dead and J. Sydney Jones - Ruin Value.


Jess Walter - Beautiful Ruins (4)

Kirk Kjeldsen -Tomorrow City (4)

E. Michael Helms -  Deadly Catch (4)

Sarah Brannan - Noah's Rainy Day (4)

Carolyn Hart - Death By Surprise (4)

Bill James - Noose (4)

J. Sydney Jones - Ruin Value (5)

Joe R. Lansdale - The Thicket (4)

Peter Leonard - Back From The Dead  (5)

Nicolas Freeling - The King Of The Rainy Country (3)

Karin Alvtegen - Missing (3)

I also managed to watch some decent films with the family, so I wasn't totally anti-social!

September Films

I also completed the Crime Fiction Alphabet Journey for the year.

KARIN ALVTEGEN - MISSING

Synopsis/blurb......

Sybilla Forsenstrom doesn't exist. For fifteen years she has been excluded from society and, as one of the homeless in Stockholm, she takes each day as it comes, keeping all her possessions in her rucksack - apart from a knife and salami which she stores in a smart briefcase. She is always well-dressed and displays impeccable manners. One night, in The Grand Hotel, she charms a susceptible businessman into paying for her dinner and room. His dead body is discovered the following morning and Sybilla becomes the prime suspect. When a second person is killed in similar circumstances, she becomes the most wanted person in Sweden.

A couple of my reading challenges that I set for myself is to read a Scandinavian book monthly and also an Award winning crime fiction book. I managed to kill two birds with the one stone here, reading Swedish author, Karin Altvegen’s debut Glass Key Award winning novel Missing. I believe she won the award in 2001 and the English translation first appeared in 2003.

Well how did I get on?

I was fascinated by the author’s portrayal of Sybilla’s existence on the fringes of society.  We see with flashbacks and frequent references to her past; her difficulties with her mother and as a result at school; her struggle to form friendships. This dysfunctional environment and a lack of support cast Sybilla as an outsider, even before her mental disintegration, subsequent hospitalisation and escape. She was an outsider when living within the structures of normal society and now believing she is still pursued, 14 years after the event she flies under the radar.

Until now; with the discovery of a dead businessman with whom she was seen dining with in a smart hotel. Sybilla Forsenstrom - her natural instinct being to evade the authorities – is soon headline news and the prime murder suspect. Life suddenly becomes a lot more difficulty for Sybilla and it’s harder to retain her invisibility.

Further murders follow, along with more revelations from her past; until a chance encounter with a schoolboy, similar in some respects to herself when a teenager, marks a turning point in her life. Slowly learning to trust someone, she starts to fight back to get out from under the shadow of being framed for the murders.          

Overall, I was interested and entertained, though I enjoyed the first half of the book more than the second. I preferred the portrayal of Sybilla’s life as a victim, in the margins than as a semi-sleuth trying to find the real murderer. A little stretching of the bounds of credibility, in my opinion, but not so much that I was annoyed and I was still engaged enough to care about the outcome.    

Decent characters, a sympathetic protagonist and an interesting setting all contributed greatly to my enjoyment. 

3 from 5

The author has written another 4 books in the intervening period, but with the library shelves already creaking under the strain of the unread tomes, I will take a rain check.  

I picked up a copy of this second hand earlier this year on e-bay.

Z's ENJOYED, Z's UNREAD

The last week of the completed Crime Fiction Alphabet Journey for 2013 and the turn of the Z’s in the spotlight. Thanks to Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise for collating and hosting the journey. Check out other bloggers entries over here.

I have 3 books to spotlight which I have read and enjoyed. Zadoorian’s entry which is one of the best books I have read in the past 4 or 5 years wouldn’t pass as crime fiction but it would be criminal of me to ignore it. There are also 3 books I have on the shelf and laptop still to enjoy.

Zadoorian, Zelterserman, Zusak.......3 enjoyed

Michael Zadoorian – The Leisure Seeker

Not crime fiction just a beautiful, touching and moving novel. My wife read this and adored it, so did I. I read this back in May, 2012 before I started penning my thoughts on the books I encountered, but I’m still haunted by it. There’s a review here by bookreporter, which does it justice. If you have an opportunity to try this, don’t pass it up.

This is the unforgettable cross country journey of a runaway couple in their twilight years determined to meet the end of all roads on their own terms. "The Leisure Seeker" is the story of John and Ella Robina, a couple married 50+ years - she has stopped her cancer treatments, he has Alzheimer's - who kidnap themselves from the adult children and the doctors who seem to run their lives, and steal off on a forbidden vacation. Each battling their own infirmities, John pilots their '78 Leisure Seeker RV (it's the one with the left turn signal blinking) along the forgotten roads of Route 66 on a journey of rediscovery. They're not searching for America, but for a past that they're having a damned hard time remembering these days. Yet Ella is determined to prove that, when it comes to life, you can go back for seconds-sneak a little extra time, grab a small portion more, even when everyone says you can't. It's the story of Ella and John: the people they encounter, the problems they overcome, the lives they have lived, the love they share, and how their heartbreak at watching friends disappear into nursing homes inspired them to face the colossus at the end of all roads on their own terms.

Dave Zeltserman – Fast Lane

Fast Lane is Zeltserman’s debut novel from 2000. Praised by Ken Bruen among others, it’s dark, bleak noir. I think he’s been likened to James Cain and Jim Thompson on more than one occasion. Not a cosy world by any stretch of the imagination. I've read a lot more books from this guy in the last 10 years or so and he seems to be getting better and better.

When a young woman approaches Denver private eye Johnny Lane to find her birth parents, the last thing he expects is the path the case leads him down. FAST LANE is a harrowing novel where as the chasm between words and reality grow wider, past and present deeds unravel with deadly force.

Marcus Zusak – The Book Thief

Difficult for me to describe, suffice to say I absolutely loved it, loved it, loved it. Uncomfortable and thought provoking. Zusak seems to straddle the boundaries between teenage YA fiction and adult. Who cares about labelling? His book, I Am The Messenger was pretty enjoyable too.

It's just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .

Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak's groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meagre existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can't resist - books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbours during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.

This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.

Zeh, Zafiro (and Wilsky), Zimmerman......3 unread

Julie Zeh – Eagles and Angels

This was a recent addition to the library a couple of months ago. Zeh is German and as I haven’t read much German fiction I’ll make minor inroads into redressing that imbalance when I read this, plus she’s a female writer and I just don’t read enough of them really.

Jessie is dead. She shot herself while on the phone with Max. And now grief-stricken Max, a UN lawyer, is forced to reevaluate everything about their relationship - including what Jessie, a drug dealer's daughter, was hiding. Embroiled with the drama of the Balkan drug trade and the shortcomings of international law, Eagles and Angels is a sophisticated riddle of a novel where mass murderers and civil war heroes exist in a bizarre symbiosis, and where nothing is as it appears. Wunderkind author Julie Zeh is the winner of the German Book Award and the Bremen Forder and the Rauriser Literature Prizes.

Frank Zafiro and Jim Wilsky – Blood on Blood

A recent cheapish kindle addition to the library.......biff, bash, bosh.....cops, crims, prison, robbery.....in the words of Del-boy.....”luvly jubbly!”  (Or.....very nice...... for readers unfamiliar with Only Fools And Horses character Derek Trotter.) The cover reminds me of a Simon Pegg film for some reason.

Half brothers Jerzy and Mick Sawyer are summoned to the prison where their father is dying. On his deathbed, he tells his sons about a diamond heist that he was part of and how some of those diamonds are still out there. He sets the two on a path of cooperation and competition to recover the jewels, each playing to his own strengths and against the others weaknesses.

Jerzy is the quintessential career criminal, fresh out of a short bit and looking to get back into the action right away. Mick is a failed cop and tainted hero struggling to get by with a clean life that doesn't seem to ever pay off. Both men see this score as their ticket out but they'll have to work together. Throw the sexy, mysterious Ania into the mix and you have all the ingredients of a classic story set in Chicago.

Jim Wilsky is a short story author with a considerable number of published stories. Many of his stories are in the crime genre. This will be his first published novel.

Frank Zafiro has written numerous novels and short stories, most in the crime genre.

Together, they've joined to be hardboiled partners in crime, writing gritty, hardboiled crime novels in two distinct voices.

Bruce Zimmerman – Blood Under the Bridge

Last entry for the journey and another recent addition purchased to maintain a wee bit of symmetry for this week’s post. Zimmerman is an author I have vaguely heard of, but never tried. This is the first in a 4 book series featuring Quinn Parker. Beyond that, I know very little about author, books and the character.......still I’ll find out more when I read it won’t I?

SAN FRANCISCO --A city of scenic perfection, where executives consult the Tarot, sunny days dawn shrouded in fog... and women are losing their heads for all the wrong reasons.

Quinn Parker knows about fear. He's fought it enough. But nothing could have prepared him for the heart-stopping fright of finding his gorgeous lover dead in her own bed... decapitated. Suddenly, he's the prime suspect in a rash of murders that has the city whispering of a new Zodiac killer. Threatened with a long life behind bars, Parker feels like a caged animal -- until his own instincts for the hunt bring him face-to-face with a madman....

Journey over – arrived safely at the final destination.  

Glad it’s all over to be honest!  It's been exhausting. Thanks for your company!